HARDKOOR

“I am not being burned out at home. I am at home burning out my doubts. And once my doubts are burned out, I will come out and I will play with you.”

Leading up to her fortieth birthday, a co-parenting mother and performance artist withdraws from public life for a year. Stuck in the stagnation of her burnout, she battles against the pressure of time, the expectations she tries to escape, and her excessive self-awareness and self-criticism. Through a personal ordeal of language, music, and movement, she carves a path toward a shameless existence, where the never-ending search for validation is replaced by radical self-love and a not-so-boring balance. With her motto “never waste a good crisis,” she confronts, in the presence of the audience, the personal and societal blind spots that have led her to this state of being.

Naomi Velissariou’s razor-sharp language, seamlessly blending English and Dutch to shatter suffocating human ideals, is interwoven in HARDKOOR with the mind-bending sound design of Joost Maaskant (Maask) and Frank Wienk (Binkbeats). Previously, Velissariou and Maaskant formed the duo PERMANENT DESTRUCTION.

Producer Frank Wienk translates their sound in HARDKOOR into a composition that explores the boundaries between acoustic and electronic music. This composition is performed by drummer Jens Bouttery and Nederlands Kamerkoor (Dutch Chamber Choir).

The performance unfolds in a setting described by designer Boris Acket as a “brutalist techno temple”: a modular installation of light and sound technology, with a special role for the choir’s voices. The costumes consist of high-fashion loungewear, designed by MAISON the FAUX.

The combination of painfully honest lyrics, hypnotic sound design rhythms, the grandeur of choral singing, the raw austerity of the installation, and the high-fashion aesthetic of the costumes make HARDKOOR a harmonizing ritual of meaning in times of hysterical reality.

HARDKOOR is a co-production of Theater Utrecht and Nederlands Kamerkoor, in collaboration with Holland Festival, NKK NXT alumni, and Nicole Beutler Projects.

English and Dutch spoken, with English surtitles.

Warning: This performance involves loud noise and flashing lights, and a stroboscope is used.